Israel and Palestine

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, all these problems in the Middle East are my fault. In 1967, I was a volunteer in the Six Day War, so I started all this mess. However, in the following decades, I have been trying to help make peace. At Marks & Spencer, we encouraged Israeli manufacturers to work with Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese companies and become partners with one another. With the help of Tony Blair, I got Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco to buy homegrown foods and textiles from the West Bank and Gaza to help them to grow. But those and many other projects did not create peace either, so I am still to blame.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, will the UK Government recognise the state of Palestine? This would then mean that rather than a recognised state—Israel—trying to negotiate with a disparate people, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, you would have two states negotiating about their borders and citizenship et cetera, and it would make it more fair and viable. It could change everything if our country, that issued the Balfour Declaration and was a mandate authority, would agree to extend recognition to a Palestinian state.

Secondly, will the UK make good on its commitment as the first country on earth to endorse the concept of creating an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which can engage a new generation, at scale, in the project of peacebuilding rather than allowing them to fall into their current despair and enmity, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, described?

Thirdly, will the UK signal its strong opposition to any legislation that taxes, chills or delegitimises the work of Israeli-Palestinian civil society, which this Israeli Government are threatening to do? Also, in May at the G7 leaders’ communique in Japan, let us please push for language that clearly shows to the governing authorities in the region that civil society is a “red line” for the international community.

Finally, I suggest that the Minister meets John Lyndon of the Alliance for Middle East Peace—ALLMEP—who is doing great work in the field; Gershon Baskin, who has been talking with both sides for decades, and Tony Klug, who has written many wise briefs on how to resolve these issues.

I close by mentioning the late Rabbi David Geffen, who died this weekend and was the founder of Loving Classroom, a project that is teaching children in Arabic, Hebrew and English in schools across the world to love, respect and befriend children on all sides. Can we support this project by adopting Loving Classroom in all schools in the UK, where it is already making a difference in several schools?